The Hero's Journey In Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury

Gatlin Farrington

12/1

P.4

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is an excellent utopian/dystopian fictional story about a man who fights for the freedom to read. The government in this world has made almost every book (with a few exceptions) illegal. They have done this due to the contradictory ideas found in them. It was thought that all of the contradictions might confuse citizens on what is the truth and what isn’t. This book, along with being a utopian fiction, follows the Hero’s Journey archetype. Even though this book may not have purposely been made as an example of the Hero’s Journey the book and many others follow the paradigm. It may not be a perfect example, however, it definitely has it’s moments.

The first three steps of the Hero’s

The Initiation (of the journey) in this book is when Guy Montag meets his “mentor” Faber, an old literature professor who lost his job due to books being banned. Both Montag and Faber agree that books should not be banned and they end up working together to stop the books from being banned. The road of trials that montag faced dealt with having Faber agree with Montag. Faber doesn 't agree that they can bring books back, he thought Montag Needed to think in a more realistic manner. The government was working so hard to get rid of books that just a few people couldn’t bring them back. Faber explains to Montag that he doesn’t want to get involved by claiming ”I can sit comfortably home, warming my frightened bones, and hear and analyse the firemen 's world, find its weaknesses, without danger. I 'm the Queen Bee, safe in the hive” -Bradbury pg 88. The ultimate boon in Fahrenheit 451 alternatively and more commonly called the climax is when Montag is taken to burn his own house by Beatty. Montag, as angry as can be, turns and burns Beatty. Beatty was a character created for the reader to dislike. He is the character that is the perfect example of what the society they live in was created to be. Montag burning him was a symbolic moment that represented Montag leaving the society he had lived in his whole life and making his life what he had wanted it to be. It was Montag burning

Fahrenheit 451, a book created by the mind of Ray Bradbury, was made to show the challenges of the Utopian lifestyle, but it is also a fantastic example of the Hero’s Journey. "We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.” -Bradbury pg 56. The most common idea of a utopian lifestyle is when everything is the same but, a Utopian lifestyle is defined as everything being perfect. This book along with providing a very entertaining adventure of a man trying to do what he wants, makes you really think, is equality the only way to achieve a utopian